


dandelion prophets

by skeletalparade (boythighs)



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Bullying, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Eventual Happy Ending, Homophobic Language, M/M, Nicaise (Captive Prince) Lives, Slow Burn, Teen Romance, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 09:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16972110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boythighs/pseuds/skeletalparade
Summary: “I don’t know what to make of you.” He admits, wetting his lips. “But I want to – I want to learn everything I possibly can about you, and I don’t know why. There’s just something about you, Laurent.”Laurent lets out a heavy breath, turning away from the force of Damen’s gaze before he can be drawn too far in. It is always like this, Damen’s entire existence a gravitation, desperately pulling Laurent into the fray of it when he cannot afford to be lost in the depths of something so fierce, something so strong. He finishes off the Griva, hands shaking, but not from the cold.Speaking with Damen is a lot like being lost at sea. Laurent decides that it is in his best interest to just stop fighting the currents.“I am not an easy person to be friends with.” He breathes in deep, eyes fluttering closed, mind numbing over to the weight of the alcohol. “I would not wish it upon anyone.”“I’m not after easy.” A quick response, like Damen had been expecting his resistance and would not stop in the face of it. Laurent can feel the heat of his gaze on the side of his face. Chooses deliberately to not open his eyes. To do so would be too much, far more than Laurent is capable of handling.





	dandelion prophets

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is my baby, and it is very, very important to me, regardless of the fact that i have not yet finished it. i have spent countless hours pouring every ounce of myself into it, hoping that it has not only been a cathartic experience for me, but that it will touch the hearts of others, as well. 
> 
> much of this comes directly from the heart. in fact, a lot of the trans experiences laurent has in this fic directly mirror my own in some way, symbolic and, in places, literal, and i am of the belief that this work will be beneficial to someone younger than i am now in the ways that i would have needed it at that age. 
> 
> should i finish the rest of this fic, i will gladly post it. until then, i do hope you all enjoy what is written.

_“A man saw a bird and found him beautiful. The bird_  
_had a song inside him, and feathers. Sometimes the_  
_man felt like the bird and sometimes the man felt like a_  
_stone—solid, inevitable—but mostly he felt like a bird,_  
_or that there was a bird inside him, or that something_  
_inside him was like a bird fluttering. This went on for_  
_a long time.”_

 

– **The Language of the Birds** , Richard Siken

 

 

**x.**

 

Slam of lockers reverberating against linoleum floors and bouncing off the brick walls, painted over with thick white to hide their truths, Laurent’s bag hangs awkwardly across his chest as he carves a path through the student body. Aimed like bullets, the flow of endless jaunting chases him from one end of the hallway to the other, where his locker is situated by the west wing boy’s restroom. He dials in his combination in time with the passing mockery of his accent, thick on his tongue, and streamlines of “look, it’s the foreign _faggot.”_

His skin is thick, though, and Laurent is nothing if not resoundingly resolute in a tough exterior wrought from the finest defenses. How is it that it goes? If you don’t feed into the bullying, then eventually it stops.

(It doesn’t, but as jaded as he is, Laurent has foolhardy hope nevertheless. Hope for a day when he can wake up in the morning without the fear of being abused in one way or another.)

From the recesses of his locker, Laurent fishes out his Algebra textbook, stowing it away in his satchel along with the folder he keeps his notes in.

“Hi, Laurent.”

The voice slashes through the hallway like a razorblade, a gentle greeting to the abysmal hopelessness of Laurent’s fluttering heart. He does not deem an appropriate response until he has closed his locker, the shock of it clear as a bell, revealing Damen’s grinning face on the other side.

The first time he had ever seen him they’d been in much the same positions as they are now: Laurent’s hand wrapped around the strap of his bag, face passively betraying nothing of the storm raging just underneath his skin, Damen smiling at him with brilliant refinery. Their lockers are side by side, a choosing of the gods, maybe, _fate_ as Auguste might have teasingly suggested once or twice.

In the minefield of high school, war grounds around every corner, Damianos Akielos is Laurent de Vere’s tender respite.

“Good morning, Damianos.” Laurent says curtly, subtly inclining his head, stuffing down the feelings of childlike giddiness that well up within him. Very few people treat Laurent with anything less than animosity – because of his appearance, because he “sounds funny,” because he does not indulge in partying, or skipping classes as the whimsies suit, because he is altogether a social anomaly to them, one that they are incapable of rationally comprehending.

People fear what they do not understand, and people attack what they fear.

But then there is Damen, kind, friendly – sweetheart of the school, and no one, not even icy Laurent, is impervious to the delight of the angels in Damen’s saccharine smile.

Perhaps Damen had sucked all the good out of the school and kept it for himself, reveling it with treasury most profound, and Laurent hates him, hates him for it. Hates that he does _not_ hate him.

The halo of Damen’s smile stretches across his face wider at Laurent’s attention, and though Laurent knows it is the case with everyone he speaks to, Laurent, momentarily, feels special in the affectation of Damen’s focus.

“How are you today?” He asks, a silly question as far as Laurent is concerned.

Someone purposely bumps into Laurent as they breeze past him down the hallway, and Laurent allows that to be answer enough as he raises his eyebrows tersely. Damen’s smile turns sheepish with remorseful apology, shoulder shrugging his backpack into place once more.

“Sorry.” He says, teeth digging into the flesh at the inner-corner of his cheek. “I could make them stop, you know. Kick somebody’s ass for you if I need to.”

And Laurent knows he’s just kidding, knows that Damen would hardly dare get himself into any sort of trouble on school grounds, but it still burns the inside of his body to consider Damen doing anything like that. For him.

“Please.” Laurent snorts instead, glassy eyes rolling in a display of casual, feigned superiority. “I don’t need you fighting my battles for me. I could stop it if I wanted to, but it’s more satisfying to see them try and get to me.”

The warning bell’s ring shuts down the furrow of Damen’s brow and his mouth opening to protest, as though he might be about to imply the truth – that the teasing _does_ bother Laurent, that Laurent is not nearly as hard as he pretends to be, something that Laurent refuses to let be said. If someone says it, then Laurent is going to stop believing his own lies, and he will cave, crumble, shatter into a million tiny pieces.

Damen’s mouth clamps shut, a bargain of warring diplomacy in the cloud of his brown irises, but rather than pressing what little time they have left before the start of first block, he sighs. Defeated. Another victory for Laurent’s pride that does not feel like a victory at all.

“See you in Lit.” Laurent says, sidestepping the broad line of Damen’s shoulder, heading down the hall and taking refuge in the solace of not having to see Damen until after lunch hour.

As he sinks into his seat at the back of his Algebra class, Laurent can still feel the heat of Damen’s uncharacteristic frown aimed at him, the overwhelming concern in his expression just before the bell had dispelled it.

Damen persists to be problematic in Laurent’s grand plan to merely exist, to float through the remainder of high school until the opportunity to move onto the bigger, the better, finally presents itself. The flourish of his pen is too heavy-handed as he scrawls the date at the top of his notebook page, jotting down the practice problems on autopilot. His mind is elsewhere. It has always been easier to pretend to be unbothered when no one cares, but now someone does, and Laurent had not configured that into the blueprints of surviving his senior year.

 

**x.**

 

The morning is a blur of pop quizzes, note taking, and the boring buzz of teachers he hardly pays any mind to. Laurent spends most of his time doodling in the margins of his notebooks, jotting down things in flashes of acknowledgement when they sound at least somewhat important. Algebra is followed by Biology, which is tailed by Psychology, and Laurent is a line of tension as he files out of the latter with steps that linger.

Next comes Gym. Bane of most existences, but especially Laurent’s; in the last vestiges of warmth clinging to the air as summer abandons them to the chillier embrace of autumn, Laurent knows that they will be left to run exercise drills in the fields.

The coaches won’t be close enough to see it when the boys hunt for Laurent and move to trip him as they sprint back and forth across the soccer field, goal to goal; they will only shout at him to be less clumsy, because no one wants to fill out the paperwork an injury entails.

Laurent doesn’t head to the locker room. Gym may not be an option, but having his skull cracked against the metal of lockers out of sight of teacher’s and cameras _is._ Instead, he dresses down into his gym clothes in the closest boy’s bathroom, yanking his t-shirt over his head and retying his hair, shoving his regular clothes into his backpack with a steadying breath. He hoists the bag over his shoulder and heads outside with his head down, the odd mixture of hot and cold wind whipping baby hairs around his face as he trudges off to the field.

He closes his eyes for a moment. High school bullying is something that Laurent can survive. He’ll get through it. He always does.

This, too, shall pass.

 

**x.**

 

“Fancy seeing you here.”

Damen’s weight is heavy as he drops into the chair next to Laurent’s at lunch, his tray of poorly cooked food meeting plastic to plastic with a clack atop the table. He says nothing about how Laurent is still in his dirt stained gym clothes. After drills, he hadn’t had the time to change back into his school clothes. He’d spent too much of his time between classes being held down by boys bigger than him as they’d shoved dirt and mud into his mouth, laughing loudly over him, out of sight, out of mind of the coaches.

Laurent recaps his water bottle, keeping Damen in his peripheral as he pushes the food around on his own tray. His tongue still tastes like grass. He isn’t all that hungry.

“Imagine finding someone eating lunch during lunch hour. Really, will wonders ever cease.” Laurent’s words drip with sarcasm, but Damen throws his head back and laughs at his own expense and it is all Laurent can do not to watch the way his neck flexes with the motion. “Don’t you have friends to be sitting with, Damianos?”

“Damen.” He corrects, just as he always does when Laurent refuses to use the nickname. His smile is soft, but his eyes are softer. “And I am sitting with a friend. _We’re_ friends, aren’t we?”

Perhaps it comes out more beseeching than Damen intends it to, or maybe Laurent is just imagining the doubting tone of his voice that makes him turn his head. It stings, the way Damen is looking at him – as though the gods have truly, sincerely _blessed_ Damen by allowing him to sit with Laurent, but also like he isn’t sure if Laurent wants him to fill the spaces in the hollow that is his life.

Damianos Akielos, darling of New Artes High, football star, surprisingly skilled mathematician (Laurent knows because he has seen the grades himself), seeking out Laurent, frigid, _strange_ little Laurent. Having the audacity to appear as though he is begging Laurent for his friendship.

 _Don’t do this to yourself,_ Laurent wants to say.

_I will only drag you down._

_They will look at you the way they look at me, they will ask you questions, and you will ask me questions, and you will be disgusted when I tell you the truth._

_Don’t you care what they say about me?_

The look on Damen’s face is starting to falter, his insecurities manifesting in the draw of his brows as he opens his mouth to backtrack, to take back the teasing words, but Laurent cuts him off before he can think better. Damen taking back the offer now would only serve to hurt Laurent – losing the only peace he has in this place would destroy him, assuredly.

“Yes.” Friends. Laurent hasn’t had any of those since France, and even then, they had been few and far between. Acquaintances. He swallows. “We are. Friends, I mean.”

Relief steals over Damen’s face, vivid and stable in the smile he sighs through. The air has stilled, the lunchroom has faded, the high school an afterthought. Damen relaxes into his seat and pulls his tray closer, lifting his artificial chicken nugget into the air in a makeshift toast.

“Cool.” He says, shoving the food into his mouth, chews working his handsome jaw, and Laurent is helplessly smiling back before he can stop himself.

 

**x.**

 

_During the surgery, Laurent dreams._

_He dreams of fuzzy, blotted out faces, indecipherable, but Laurent sees the shadow of him in every unrecognizable body closing in on him. The way you recognize a voice even after years of not hearing it._

_He dreams that he is young again, small enough to fit perfectly in his mother’s dainty lap. Small enough to warrant attention this side of_ wrong _, this side of_ evil _, and in this dream, he is reliving the nightmare of all those years of his uncle’s bony fingers brushing wispy hair from Laurent’s eyes. He hears his uncle’s voice through the static of his anesthesia induced slumber, telling him how lovely he is, how intelligent, how clever, and would you like to come on a trip with me, young one? It will be so fun, just the two of us._

_He buys his silence with ice cream afterwards, and Laurent still feels the sticky places where it had dripped over the edge of the cone as it melted in on itself, as Laurent melted in on himself, and he never tells anyone until after his mother and father have been killed in the car accident and his uncle gets worse. So much worse._

_(Where did he touch you? The adults ask, and Laurent’s fingers point: here, and there, and everywhere.)_

_Laurent dreams of Auguste’s grief-stricken face when he finally comes clean, the parts in the court room with a dozen blotted out faces all calling him a liar, a despicable, lying_ bitch _, until the judge’s gavel bangs and his uncle’s sentence rings clear as a bell:_

_You will live as a ghost in everything that Laurent de Vere does, your talon-sharp claws wrapped around a young neck until his windpipe is crushed beneath the vice of it._

_When Laurent wakes post-op, his chest is wrapped in neat, clean bandages. His dazed gaze seeks out the form of his brother at his bedside. He is greeted by the glittering, relieved smile on Auguste’s face as soon as he notices that his brother has woken._

_It was a dream, Laurent reminds himself. Just a dream._

_Just a dozen blotted out memories, but at least with the surgery he is one step closer to wiping clean the curse of his uncle on his skin._

 

**x.**

 

They trade lackluster anecdotes all throughout lunch, and when the bell rings, Damen walks with him to their shared Literature class. He passes halfhearted waves to people as they walk, pushed together shoulder to shoulder by the influx and outflux of students in the hallways. Laurent is hypervigilant, half expecting someone to stop them and demand that they explain the oddity of their existence as a pair. Why, after all, would _Damen_ be caught dead walking with _Laurent_ to class?

The hold-up never comes, though. They make it to fifth period unscathed, and Laurent feels the heat of Damen’s arm pressed to his well after they take their seats, separated by a single row that feels like an ocean today. Laurent is diligent in taking notes on every detail of their teacher’s spiel, devoted attention renewed by the need to not look up, to _not_ look over at Damen the way he wants to.

It is unlike Laurent to feel like what he is: a confused, lonely teenager in desperate need of kindness and friendship. Damen has given it to him freely these past few months, but today had come the hurdle Laurent did not know he was preparing for until it had finally passed. He supposes, of course, that there was never any question about Damen’s intentions to warm Laurent to the idea of having a friend.

Still. Laurent cannot get over how weird it is, how huge it feels to admit to himself that maybe he had been waiting all along for someone to come and be patient enough with him to wear down his impenetrable lines of resistance. The thought terrifies him; he is petrified by considering what it would mean to let someone in, to trust someone other than Auguste.

The bell rings. Laurent comes jarringly back to himself. His notebook is filled with gibberish, his handwriting a mess of disjointed and half-formed thoughts, a distinction of where exactly he had lost control of his hand to the discombobulation of his head. He sighs and flips the notebook closed, shoving it forcefully into his bag, along with the copy of Hamlet that he’s barely touched since it being assigned earlier in the week.

There are only two classes keeping him away from the freedom of the weekend. Getting through Creative Writing and Economics will be easy enough, but he knows they will drag by today. As he is picking his bag up, the very entity haunting his thoughts conjures himself next to Laurent’s desk. Laurent bites back the natural inclination to be overtly rude as he turns blinking eyes up at Damen. Being caustic comes so innate that to unlearn it for anyone will be a practice in self-discipline. For the best, perhaps.

Damen is not meeting his eyes, and for a horrible second Laurent wonders if he might already regret declaring himself Laurent’s friend. How could he have discerned from a very detached, impersonal conversation over burnt chicken nuggets that Laurent is a broken, nightmarish creature? His heart is on the verge of jackhammering its way out of his chest, or maybe it will settle instead for clawing gorishly from the length of his throat. Laurent forces it back down, clearing it away before it can make a bloody disaster of Damen’s entire being.

“So, uh, I know this is kind of sudden and maybe a little weird because until today I wasn’t totally sure if you even liked me, like, at all. But I guess you do, at least a little, because you said we were friends at lunch.” Damen trips over his words in his haste to get them all out, immediately quelling Laurent’s fight or flight response to _flee,_ and his hands shove themselves into his pockets.

He talks more when he is nervous. Laurent finds it endearing. His face feels hot at the silent admission.

“Is there a point to all of that, or did you just word vomit for no reason?” Not unkindly, Laurent tries to put the conversation on some sort of track, making sure that his tone is lighthearted enough. He even smiles, albeit somewhat awkwardly. Take control of the situation, take control of yourself. Auguste had taught him that when they were kids.

Damen pulls a hand out of his pocket and rubs it over the unruly, dark curls on his head. Laurent watches as they wrap around his thick fingers, coiling around them as Damen scratches his scalp.

“You know Nikandros, right? My best friend?”

“I know _of_ him, yes.” They have Algebra together, he sits at the back of the class. While never especially unkind to Laurent, he has equally never been anything noteworthy. Just another face in a sea of hundreds. Laurent recognizes him only because he has seen him with _Damen,_ because he is on the football team, because they are attached at the hip.

“Well, Nik is having a party tonight. Kind of. It’s not – before you say no, it’s not a party in the typical sense. We do this thing every year around this time because they haven’t cut down the cornstalks yet and it’s – _please_ just say you’ll come, before I make an even bigger idiot out of myself.”

Damen finishes in a rush, Laurent acutely aware of the fact that he may or may not be flushed so much that not even his darker complexion can hide it. After he has noticed it, is hard for Laurent to focus on anything else, but then it also occurs to him that Damen is looking at him expectantly.

Damen has invited Laurent to some type of get-together with he and his friends, and he is waiting for Laurent’s response, looking _shy_. Except that doesn’t make any sense; Damen has no reason to look shy. Laurent feels hot beneath his scrutiny and adjusts the bag on his shoulder.

“I don’t have a car.” Laurent mumbles, unsure of himself. Unsure of this whole situation, frankly. He could probably ask Auguste for a ride but that would just make him feel more embarrassed, and, really, he would just rather not.

“I can pick you up.” Damen’s words are a breath stringing together, his best attempts at persuading Laurent to not say no.

Laurent is seriously not strong enough for this. No man could be, not when faced with a puppy eyes like _that._

Laurent sighs, finally conceding to a nod. “Okay. I’ll need to give you my address, but—”

Seemingly prepared for this, Damen jerks his other hand out of his pocket and juts it out to Laurent, who blinks down owlishly at the hand as if it has offended him personally. Extended is a torn slip of paper, seven inelegantly scrawled digits written in blue ink. In the artificial classroom lighting, they look neon. Blinding. Gingerly, Laurent accepts the phone number before looking back up at Damen.

“Text it to me, and I’ll come get you around eight?”

Laurent nods again, capable of little else. Damen smiles at him, always striking, always kind. He rocks back on his heels and then struts off, leaving Laurent alone in the class as the warning bell shrills in the hall. He curses, speed-walking out of the room, and tamping down on whatever feeling is making a valiant attempt to bloom from the half-planted seeds in his chest.

 

**x.**

 

New Artes is less of a city and more of a town, a midwestern _ideal_ , for those who can sincerely fathom such a thing without feeling the overwhelming need to be sick.

(Laurent is not one of these people – in fact, he had been _quite_ sick when Auguste had first proposed the idea of moving here.)

Suburbs quaint and small surrounded by endless fields of corn, rich with agriculture, a lattice-work of streets surrounding the single high school at its epicenter. There is a single middle school, and two elementary schools, nothing at all like the private institutions Laurent had attended in France, where things had been normal, better.

To go from a city fairly large in scale to this – this microscopic place built on prejudices and discriminations… culture shock does not begin to convey the feelings Laurent has about being here. Everywhere he turns there is another failing infrastructure overrun by vines and weeds, dead end dirt road, or corner store that closes at nine o’clock on the dot.

The breeze ruffles his hair, and he brushes it behind his ears, though he knows it will not stay. He is sitting on the front porch waiting for Damen – it’s 7:50, so he has a few minutes, but he can’t bear to be inside where Auguste is. Two and a half months, and Laurent is still not quite alright enough about his life being uprooted to look his brother in the eye, to spend more time in his presence than is absolutely necessary.

He’d spent his whole life in France. It was his home, through everything. The loss of his parents, the things that this uncle did to him – after it all, he’d been thankful for the unchanging, for routine, for a clinical existence to keep his head on his shoulders.

_(“You’re turning into a zombie, Laurent.” Auguste once said, the wrinkles on his forehead tight with concern when the only wrinkles he should have had at 24 were laughter lines. “I can tell you’re not okay. Please, just talk to me.”_

_“I’m fine.” Laurent had lied through his teeth, but his voice was monotone, and there was so much less life in his face than there’d been when they were kids. Before he’d been ruined, before the light had been sapped from his eyes and replaced by nothing but darkness, darkness, darkness. “There’s nothing left to say.”_

_Auguste’s frown told Laurent everything he needed to know: Auguste did not believe him, and he would not believe him, and he blamed himself for everything. Even the things that were Laurent’s fault._

_Laurent took his meds quietly, choking them down without water just to feel the burn in his throat, to feel anything at all, and left the kitchen without looking back. But the frown followed him up the stairs, down the haunted halls of the house the two brothers had inherited from their dead parents. There was too much death in the walls, too many ghosts – and Laurent was determined to end up as one of them.)_

The sleeves of his navy sweater run a little long, covering his hands where he folds them together and presses them between his knees. The way the porch is raised from the ground, Laurent’s feet don’t quite reach the ground, and he is free to kick them back and forth while he watches the road. Their street doesn’t get a lot of traffic, off the beaten path, sequestered away in a shroud of tall, scraggly trees.

Auguste had said they needed the peace and quiet of being away from the hustle and bustle. Laurent still disagrees. Still feels like he has been robbed of a whole life, but he can’t tell Auguste about how they treat him at school. He can’t keep breaking his brother’s heart. He needs to learn how to defend himself, it’s just hard enough being the new kid, looking and acting the way he does; he can’t afford getting into any sort of trouble by picking fights.

What he wants more than anything is to just – finish high school and get away.

Back to France, maybe.

It’s quiet enough that when Damen pulls onto the street as the sun is slowly sinking down in the sky, Laurent can hear the rumble of his engine. He drives a very nice truck, luridly red. Laurent has seen him crawl into it with as many of his friends as he can squeeze into it after school on more than one occasion, wishing that he could have any semblance of that, any normalcy of it.

Well, he’s getting his wish now, he supposes, Damen pulling slowly into their driveway. Suddenly, he is very nervous about this. He had been before, but only the vague notion of it. Now it is a full feeling, low in the cradle of his stomach. Laurent slides off the porch and approaches the truck, opening the passenger side door and heaving himself in. It is ridiculously far off the ground, and Laurent’s legs are not that long.

“Hey.” Damen says, grinning. Laurent shuts the door and buckles his seatbelt.

“Thanks for getting me.” He replies, watching the house shrink away as Damen shifts into reverse and pulls back out of the driveway. A curtain flutters in the dining room window. Auguste keeping vigilance even when his younger brother has been an absolute terror. Figures.

“It’s really no problem.” Damen assures him, reaching over to pass Laurent his phone. Laurent blinks at it even as he takes it, looking askance at Damen. “Pick something for us to listen to. I’m not sure what kind of music you like, but there’s a little of everything on there.”

Laurent takes a second to scroll through Damen’s music library, amused by certain artists, unsurprised by others. He raises an eyebrow at a few, biting his lower lip to keep snickers in. There’s rap, pop, heavy metal, oldies, country (and he can just _imagine_ Damen singing along to Jason Aldean, driving in his stupid truck, windows rolled down, only one hand on the wheel, and hates how vividly the picture of it comes to mind), legitimately _everything._ After a minute, Laurent just picks something he recognizes, however faintly.

Damen hums at his choice. “I’m a huge fan of Raleigh Ritchie, actually. Good pick.”

Something warm unfurls in his stomach, jittery nerves overcome by it, at Damen’s praise. Laurent snuffs it quickly, turning to look out of the window. Everything is a blur of greens and blues and a fading sunset, night beginning to rip the sky open and flood it with inky blacks, dots of light in the sky starting to slowly show their faces. The rest of the drive is music, and Damen’s soft humming along to the song. Laurent closes his eyes to the sounds of it.

_The world is at my feet, and I am standing on the ceiling. And I fall, fall, fall, and it all comes down, and I won’t be crushed by the weight of this town…_

 

**x.**

 

At Damen’s gentle jostling, Laurent blinks back into consciousness. His forehead is pressed to the window, and he does not remember falling asleep, and he forces himself very pointedly not to flinch at the hand lingering on his shoulder. He is very fortunate that he did not dream.

Too much time cannot have passed, but the sun has vanished entirely from the sky, and they are parked in front of a large farm house. Laurent sits up, and Damen withdraws his hand at last.

“Sorry, I did not mean to fall asleep.” Laurent says, rolling his shoulders to get the cricks out. Damen does not look perturbed in the slightest. Laurent feels his own anxieties scaling the walls of his insides, though. That he could fall asleep around someone who is a stranger, for all intents and purposes, worries him.

“It’s totally fine. The drive is pretty boring.” He gets out of the truck. Before Laurent has his wits enough about him to follow in kind, Damen has rounded the truck and is opening the door for him, offering him a hand to help get down. Laurent stares at it, face blank, and then makes deliberate eye contact as he gets down all by himself, feet meeting gravel when they land. Damen laughs. “Extremely independent. I’m adding that to my list of things I know about you.”

Laurent has never been more thankful for the dark in his life; his face is immediately splashed with heat, blazing, and he hopes that the light flooding from the house is not nearly enough to draw attention to his blush. He scoffs.

“You have a list of my traits? That isn’t creepy at _all,_ Damianos.”

Damen laughs, even louder than before, and Laurent is not going to allow himself to react to it. He ignores the roll of his heart at the sound altogether.

“It’s not creepy. Maybe I’m just trying to keep track of all the things I like about you.”

The front door of the house bursts open, and out comes a gaggle of other teens, trails of their own laughter and conversations floating on the wind to where Laurent is staring wide-eyed with shock at Damen. Damen has turned all his attention to his friends as they begin to walk their way, Nikandros at the helm of them. He and Damen meet halfway in a hug, thumping each other on the back in greeting before pulling apart and grinning.

“Glad you decided to show your pretty face, Damen.” Nikandros says, one hand still on Damen’s elbow. Laurent swallows everything down and tucks it away at the back of his mind. Whatever moment he and Damen had been having has been effectively ruined by Damen’s friends.

Other than Nikandros, Laurent doesn’t recognize any of them as more than faces he has seen around campus (with Damen, his brain points out rather embarrassingly), and he cannot stick a name to a single one of them.

“I brought a plus one.” Damen says, drawing sudden, undivided attention to Laurent’s otherwise ignored presence. All eyes are on him, and if Laurent had not been trained in the act of being made a spectacle of, he might wither beneath this many gazes. However, he has been put on literal trial, has been subjected to all sorts of attention, bad, worse, and awful, and this could hold no candle to any of it. “Everyone, this is Laurent.”

Silence befalls the group for a long, unflinching second of an awkward introduction. Laurent stares at all of them as they all stare at him, assessing, the stretch of it an eternity trickling by, until a girl steps forward from the bunch of them. Rivulets of finely curled blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, sky shade to his sapphire, a face painted like a runway model, and a body to match.

She sticks her hand out, the look on her face daring Laurent to refuse it. He knows by the brazen look in her eyes that he should respect her and her greeting, so he takes her hand to give it a curt shake.

“I’m Jokaste.” Burgundy coated lips tilting up into an award-winning smile, she pulls her hand back and flicks her hair over her shoulder. “It’s nice to finally meet the guy Damen can’t shut his damn mouth about.”

The group around them titters with laughter and just like that, everything is startlingly less awkward, snide, barely audible remarks being made about Jokaste’s comment, passing words of offhanded agreement. Laurent, though relieved by Jokaste’s intervention, can only focus on Damen as he laughs along with his friends. After a pause the length of Laurent’s breath, Damen meets his gaze, hand stilling where it rubs over his neck. He smiles sheepishly before his attention is once again dragged away by another comment that Laurent does not hear.

Laurent watches Damen’s throat work over his laughter, his shoulders sagging slightly, eyes crinkling at their edges in amusement, and Laurent has no idea what he has gotten himself into.

He feels eyes on him and turns to catch Jokaste giving him a very knowing smirk, and he lies to himself by insisting silently that there is nothing _for_ her to know.

“Alright, cool, glad everyone is super well-acquainted now.” Nikandros’ voice slices through the laughter and conversation as he makes his way over to the porch to grab a black tub. He walks it back over and puts it down on the ground, where everyone immediately goes to pull out – flashlights? Damen takes two, one for himself, and one that he passes off to Laurent with a grin and a wink.

“This is the fun part,” He stage-whispers, ignoring or simply ignorant to the glare Nikandros shoots his way for not listening. Laurent is extremely, overwhelmingly confused by the proceedings of this night.

“Since we’ve got a couple of newcomers among us tonight, I’m gonna go over the rules as plainly as I can manage.” Nikandros tosses his flashlight gently into the air, catching it one-handed, which leaves his other hand propped congenially on his hip. “The way this works is real simple, guys. Consider it a fancy version of hide and seek, with the added fun of a corn field and flashlights.”

Laurent raises his eyebrows at Damen, who gestures for him to keep listening before he starts asking questions.

“There’s one person who’s ‘it,’ which we’ll get to deciding after I’m done talking you losers through this, and the goal is to – obviously – find everyone else. How it goes is that the person seeking gets to call for everyone to point their flashlights up at any point they want. If you hear someone scream “lights!” then you are obligated by the laws of my land to shine that shit, you hear me? I catch you cheating, and you’re banned from the booze Makedon is bringing later.”

A cacophony of groans (and Laurent’s not sure if they are good or bad) chases Nikandros’ words, and the boy grins, wide and pleased with himself. Laurent can almost imagine him patting himself on the back.

“Quick recap: hide and seek, corn, lights when you’re asked, no cheating, free booze when the game is over. Any questions?”

No one asks anything, which Nikandros takes to mean he is in the clear, and claps his hands together –flashlight and all. He nudges the tub out of his way as he takes a step forward, and Laurent realizes he has something in the other hand, too; a neat little row of straws, one for every person.

“Whoever draws the short straw is tonight’s _hunter._ C’mon, don’t be shy.” Everyone comes forward to grab a straw, and Laurent finds himself holding his breath as he picks one… a quick look around, and it’s clear to see that his is one of average length. Damen’s is, too. Good. Laurent doesn’t think he could get through tonight without someone to trail after, ashamed as he is to admit it, even to himself.

“Fuck!” Someone shouts, and everyone turns to look as he flings the flimsy plastic to the ground in clear frustration. Laurent correctly assumes that this means he has drawn the losing hand. “Really, man? I was it last time!”

Nikandros laughs and slips the remaining straws into his back pocket. “All’s fair in love and war, Jord. Now chill the fuck out and be a good sport before I kick your ass.” Jord gives Nikandros the finger but doesn’t say anything else, just turns his back to the group and calls over his shoulder.

“Go hide, you fuckers. I’m only counting to fifty.”

“Count to at least _eighty,_ asshole!” Damen laughs, and Laurent watches as the bodies start racing off towards the field across the driveway, shrieks of laughter and excitement and thrill as they sink into the stalks of corn that are stretching up into the dark, night sky. It’s a clear night, a light breeze, Laurent’s sweater doing little to brace against the chill. He shivers, shuffling his feet a bit awkwardly before he follows Damen’s lead. “Don’t worry,” Damen begins reassuringly. “You’ll start getting warmed up in no time at all. Stick with me, and I’ll lead us to total victory.”

Laurent doesn’t have the heart to inform Damen that he doesn’t know anyone else here tonight, and that wandering around in a field of corn by himself does not sound like something he would enjoy doing on a Friday night.

The pace Damen sets for them is brisk and hurried, winding and weaving and leading them deeper and deeper into the field. Off in the distance, Laurent can hear cries and shouts as others lose themselves in the night, drowning out the cry of crickets and the low croaking of frogs. It is such a strange thing, thinking about how he got here tonight. Staring at the broad line of Damen’s firm, large back, strong hands holding stalks of corn out of the way, so they don’t smack into Laurent’s face as they move.

How much of this will he regret tomorrow?

Social outings are not his strong suit, especially not _here._ There had been dances and parties in France, but nothing like this – being chased in cornfields by one of Damen’s close friends, surrounded by more of them, a puzzle that Laurent does not fit into. An equation that has been written in Sharpie on a whiteboard, jarringly wrong, equally unsolvable.

“When you said this would not be a typical party, I had not imagined this.” Laurent confesses, and Damen laughs.

“Something to write home about, huh?” Damen says, smiling over his shoulder. If Laurent had anyone left to write to, maybe. “A bunch of teenagers running around on their friend’s farm land and then getting stupidly drunk after. There might be a few horror movies that start out like this, actually.”

“If there aren’t, then there will be soon, I am sure.” Laurent has been hearing odd noises around them for a few minutes now. He sincerely hopes that there are not any real serial killers between the cornstalks. He does not know how Auguste would take the news of his brother being brutally murdered in a field of corn at ten on a Friday night. Not well, he imagines.

From a way off, the two of them hear the first call – Jord’s voice shrilling over the sound of laughter spattered like paint in the night. They point their flashlights up in beacons of light, Laurent’s hands only fumbling a little. “He sounded kind of far, right?” Damen asks, grinning at Laurent. Damen does a lot of smiling around him, he’s noticed, taking it at face value for the pure thing that it is. “I reckon we shouldn’t worry too much about being his first victims.”

Twisting and turning through the stalks, Laurent is left to wonder what it is about this that Damen and his friends find so entertaining. To him, it feels like a poor imitation of a childhood game, one he left behind before he’d even fully grown out of its fancy. More dirt is involved, far more bugs – Laurent swats yet another swam of gnats out of his face – and less involved, perhaps, until the next call for revelation comes.

Jord is closer to them, now, and Damen shushes him, stopping abruptly so that Laurent very nearly barrels right into his back. They shine their lights and off to their left comes the victorious voice of a predator spotting its prey.

Damen does not hesitate even a second before he is reaching back to grab Laurent’s wrist, tugging him along as he tears off in a run. Laurent stumbles over his feet to keep up with him, pulled along blindly in the dark, stalks whipping around their bodies as they maneuver their way through the field.

“I can so hear you, you fucks!” Jord is close on their trail, and Laurent knows that at this rate, this straight-line Damen is leading them in, they will be caught. The gears are turning: ahead of them, a shuffle too deliberate to be anything other than feet, a harsh whisper urging a partner to stay quiet. Laurent’s instincts take over; he twists his wrist in Damen’s iron-clad grasp to take hold of Damen’s hand, fingers slotting together so that Laurent can jerk him off his path and into a different direction. He halts him just as soon as they are what he thinks will probably be an appropriate distance, Damen looking at him questioningly, goes to ask him what he thinks he’s doing, but Laurent slaps a hand over his mouth.

Not a second later, Jord runs by them, Damen’s back to the thunder of his feet as he carries on in the same direction they’d been going before Laurent’s diversion. Instead of stumbling across them, Jord calls for lights again, and it happens exactly as Laurent had envisioned it—

Instead of finding them, Jord is facing the way of the others Laurent had heard, seeing their lights in the night and starting yet another chase that leads him further and further away from Damen and Laurent. Someone screams a curse, and Jord whoops happily, too proud of himself, none the wiser that he has played right into Laurent’s hand.

Damen’s heaving chest is a mirror to Laurent’s own, the two of them staring at each other, out of breath and still holding hands. Laurent pulls his away first, but he is weak to the smile breaking free on his face.

“Good thinking.” Damen pants, lips pulled back in a manic smile, sweat dripping down his forehead and trailing down the sides of his face. Laurent is pleased that his face is already red with exertion therefore rendering his blush completely invisible, and he shrugs, reaching up to push his sweat soaked hair out of his face.

“I just didn’t want to spend the night waiting for the game to be over when I could have been playing it,” Laurent says, understanding now why this is fun to the others. The adrenaline in his veins is distractingly addictive, winning him over with ease. He takes Damen’s hand again, setting off in another direction to the sound of Damen’s heavenly laughter at his back, wrapping around him like a warm embrace. Inhibitions thrown out of the proverbial window, Laurent is here to _win._

 

**x.**

 

In the end, Laurent is forced to sacrifice Damen to be the last man standing, the look of betrayal on Damen’s face exaggerated for affect as he laughs and lets himself be cornered and caught by Jord. After that, Jord runs himself in circles trying to find Laurent, but after what feels like an eternity of being evaded and tricked, he reluctantly cedes all victory to the blonde. They emerge from the cornfield drenched in sweat, Jord clapping him on the back as they do.

“Well played, newbie.” He says, smiling at Laurent even while he struggles to catch his breath. Laurent blinks at his retreating back as he jogs over to where the others are sitting around on the porch, lounging, some of them nursing bottles and others raising red solo cups to Laurent in cheers of victory as he approaches.

“Your plus one bested all of us, Damen,” Jokaste’s words are a coo over the neck of her beer bottle, eyes waspish glints in the harsh illumination of the gently swaying lights that dangle from the roof of the porch.

“He sure as hell did.” Damen sounds pleased. He seems to have accepted his own alcohol cup from the only new face in the crowd, who Laurent is left to presume is the aforementioned Makedon, bringer of beer and what appears to be a clear concoction of sorts that Laurent is afraid to even ask about.

Damen catches him eyeing the glass jars of it sitting around the bottles of beer. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. He calls it Griva, and it tastes like – well, honestly, it tastes like piss mixed with vomit, paired with a little vodka.”

“Gets the job done, though.” Makedon calls from his end of the porch, having heard everything Damen had said. He is the embodiment of teenage intoxication, words slurred, and face flushed with it; he’s leaning against one of the columns keeping the roof upright, a girl tucked under one arm, and a boy tucked under the other. Laurent quirks a brow but is choosing, very pointedly, not to ask. “Puts hair on your chest, that’s for damn sure, but it sure as hell ain’t for the faint of heart.”

The way he says it, the way he meets Laurent’s eyes and grins, feels very much like a challenge, and Laurent has already been the victor once over tonight, so why not make it two for two? He walks over to the supply of alcohol and plucks a red cup from the diminished stack of them, unscrewing the lid off one of the mason jars to pour himself a hearty cup of Griva. One whiff could singe the hairs right off his nose if he inhales deeply enough, so he doesn’t – he holds his breath and lifts the cup to his lips, swallowing it down with all the strength he can muster.

Once he has drained his cup in one swift, smooth move, all eyes are on him as he struggles to keep the shit down, but when it’s clear he isn’t going to throw up (yet, anyway), the porch erupts in cheers once more. Makedon looks impressed, and when Laurent catches Damen’s eye, so does he, though it is a softer sort of expression on him.

Laurent pours himself another cup for good measure and finds a spot to plop down next to Damen where he’s sitting on the edge of the porch. They’re pressed shoulder to shoulder, like earlier in the hallway, only now Laurent does not feel like he is fighting against the urge to shudder his way out of his skin. The ember-warm glow of the alcohol is already hitting him, since he had foregone dinner in a fit of nerves, and he is feeling brazen enough from it and the adrenaline of the night to feel marginally more relaxed.

“Having fun?” Damen asks, beer bottle held in a dangle between his parted legs. The wind plays with the curls around the nape of his neck, the light dancing tricks over his golden skin. Not for the first time, Laurent is made horrifically aware of just how gorgeous Damen is, and how none of this really makes any sense.

“More than I expected to.” Laurent is honest enough not to spare Damen the truth. Coming out tonight had been a gamble, truthfully, a roll of the dice, but in this moment, he feels that perhaps it has paid off. He had not anticipated it being so different than what he is used to at school.

Allowing himself to be hunted by a stranger tonight did not feel anything like the bullies chasing him down and roughing him up just shy of something noticeable; contrarily, Laurent does not feel afraid in this crowd. He feels that if he plays his cards right, he might just be able to make friends of them. It is an epiphany that strikes him with hot clarity.

Damen is more than he bargained for. _All_ of this is more than Laurent bargained for.

Damen takes a pull from his bottle, long, pensively looking out over the expanse of his best friend’s front yard. His face is relaxed and opened in a way that Laurent wishes he could mimic, that he could comprehend. To be so at ease all the time must be a blessing – Laurent is jealous, the alcohol makes him realize, that Damen’s life is so much simpler than his own. What must it be like to not have to contemplate every move ten steps ahead?

Laurent is not in control of his own chess piece, but the board keeps on moving anyway, and Damen has never had to know what that feels like, and Laurent cannot even begin to think what it is like to exist that way. Better, certainly.

“I’m really glad you came out tonight.” Damen says, voice hushed, private. Laurent stops thinking to focus on him instead, to focus on how Damen’s body angles itself towards Laurent, open, free, easy, everything Laurent cannot afford to be. “I know people at school are… I know they’re not good to you, and I wish you would let me do more for you.”

Laurent’s whole body is burning, partially the Griva, partially from running around for hours. Against the stark backdrop of the house’s muted colors, Damen sticks out like a sore thumb – he is brilliant light, an offering from the universe that Laurent is incapable of wrapping his mind around. Laurent has to take a sip of his own drink just to keep his mouth from turning to straight cotton.

“What’s the point?” He asks softly, trying not to let his voice sound unsteady, but his fingers tremble around the cup, and he isn’t sure how well he succeeds. “They would only make things hard on you, too, and you don’t deserve it.”

“And you do?” Damen’s quiet question should not be as jarring as it is. He simply asks it, because he does not know what Laurent has done, what he is capable of. The taint that runs through his veins. Laurent’s head faces the ground, the mulch lining the porch’s perimeter.

“What _if_ I do?” Laurent replies, tone icy cold, the sweater he is wearing suddenly feeling more like a cage of fabric; he is hyper-aware of everywhere it touches his skin, and he wants to claw it off, skin to follow it, until he is left bare to the night’s nippy air.

Cautiously, like approaching a frightened animal, Damen places a hand on Laurent’s knee. Laurent does not jerk away from the touch the way he should. Or maybe he shouldn’t. The alcohol makes it hard to parse. He looks up and loses himself in the gentleness in Damen’s expression, the pinch of his brow, the frown on his face that Laurent never wants to see again so long as he can help it.

“No one deserves to be bullied, Laurent. _Especially_ not you.”

Unthinkingly Laurent lifts a hand to cup Damen’s cheek, thumb brushing the corner of Damen’s mouth where the frown slowly changes into something like shock. Tomorrow (if he remembers this small detail), Laurent will feel embarrassed by the bravery his liquid courage has given him, but for tonight, he smiles, small, faint in the half-light of the porch.

“Such a serious look does not suit you, Damianos.”

His hand falls away. He watches Damen drain the rest of his beer, perhaps to cover the flush of his cheeks, which have faded into something rosen despite himself. Damen sets the bottle aside but does not look away from Laurent’s face, and though he has surely heard Laurent’s words, the grave expression on his face does not change.

“I don’t know what to make of you.” He admits, wetting his lips. “But I want to – I want to learn everything I possibly _can_ about you, and I don’t know why. There’s just something about you, Laurent.”

Laurent lets out a heavy breath, turning away from the force of Damen’s gaze before he can be drawn too far in. It is always like this, Damen’s entire existence a gravitation, desperately pulling Laurent into the fray of it when he cannot afford to be lost in the depths of something so fierce, something so strong. He finishes off the Griva, hands shaking, but not from the cold.

Speaking with Damen is a lot like being lost at sea. Laurent decides that it is in his best interest to just stop fighting the currents.

“I am not an easy person to be friends with.” He breathes in deep, eyes fluttering closed, mind numbing over to the weight of the alcohol. “I would not wish it upon anyone.”

“I’m not after easy.” A quick response, like Damen had been expecting his resistance and would not stop in the face of it. Laurent can feel the heat of his gaze on the side of his face. Chooses deliberately to not open his eyes. To do so would be too much, far more than Laurent is capable of handling.

“Get me another drink.”

“Are you sure? You already look like you’re about to pass out.”

Laurent does open his eyes, then, turning the full force of his glare onto Damen, who is grinning airily, goading Laurent very intentionally.

“If you want us to be friends, Damianos, then you will get me a beer, and you will do it now.”

Damen’s laughter fills him with golden light, chasing away the darkness just momentarily as he rises slowly, dusting off the back of his pants.

“Alright, alright. Put the claws away, I’ll get us some beers.”

He walks off, leaving Laurent to his thoughts. He stares down into his empty cup, and takes another long, deep breath. Fills his lungs with brisk autumn air. Carefully reconstructs what he can of himself while this drunk, head spinning with disjointed thoughts. It’s easy enough to focus on the sounds of other conversations carrying on around him, the porch so filled with teenager camaraderie, and when Damen comes back to hand him a beer as he takes a swig of his own, neither of them speaks again.

 

**x.**

 

All the lights in the house are off when Damen pulls his monstrosity of a car back into the driveway. It’s almost three in the morning, and they have not spoken at all since their talk earlier in the night. Damen kills the engine, the car comfortably silent. Laurent makes no move to get out, not immediately. They have unfinished business, Laurent knows, loathe as he is to acknowledge it.

“Thanks again for coming with me.” Damen says, one hand on his thigh, the other still hanging out the rolled down window. Laurent thinks he must prefer to drive that way, windows down, arm on the edge of the door, hair in his face and music blaring. “It was nice to have you there.”

Laurent shrugs helplessly, still unused to anyone enjoying his presence. “Thanks for inviting me.” His tongue thankfully supplies, the full capabilities of his brain abandoned hours ago. He is still not entirely sober. “I suppose it wasn’t… awful.” Teasing. Mostly.

It’s worth it to see Damen’s mouth contort into a soft smile. “I meant what I said before, about this not being some conquest. I really do want to be your friend, even if you are difficult.”

This would normally be the time for Laurent to look away, but there is something about Damen’s face, the truth in his words, that once again takes him by thoughtless surprise. Damen really, really means what he is saying, and Laurent cannot – he cannot, for the sake of his own wellbeing, understand why. Nothing about it makes sense. Damen’s kindness, his diligence in pursuing Laurent, it’s nonsensical. The world is not a kind place; it is a stone-cold bitch of a thing, one that has dealt Laurent the hand of the monumentally unfortunate. Strife and hardship cling to him like a second skin, and Laurent is so strikingly unfamiliar with unconditional kindness that it as foreign to him as the country in which he now lives.

Laurent’s throat clicks as he swallows, his hand fumbling over the handle of the door. He wrenches it open and gets out of the truck, encompassed by a sudden gust of wind, and just before he shuts it again, he says, very softly, “Goodnight, Damianos.”

From the top-most step of his front porch, Laurent watches Damen and his truck disappear into the night, snaking off down the road and out of sight. After it is completely spirited away by the darkness, Laurent turns his back, fishing out his house key and unlocking the front door. The house is quiet, Auguste most definitely asleep; Laurent knows that tomorrow he leaves on a weeklong business trip to Europe. The silence of the house as Laurent creeps down the hall and up the stairs to his bedroom is but a mere taste of what it will be like to be alone, truly alone, while his brother is away.

Inside his room, Laurent kicks his shoes off, reminding himself to wash the bottoms of them off thoroughly tomorrow, as they are likely caked with mud. Their house’s hardwood floors are too nice to scuff up with grime and dirt.

He strips off his sweater, tossing it into his dirty clothes hamper and replacing it with a threadbare t-shirt that had been Auguste’s years ago. It hangs slightly too big off of one shoulder, but it is comfortable, and reminds him of home. Freed of his pants, Laurent climbs into bed and does not bother setting an alarm. Auguste will be gone before he wakes, either way, and he will not want to wake Laurent if he does not have to.

Given the way things have been strained between them, Laurent doubts that he would even if he did need to.

Sleep takes grip more freely with his intoxication, and Laurent is thankful for this part of the process. It saves him the trouble of tossing and turning about for hours to quiet the noise of his voracious thoughts, hangover be damned.

 

**x.**

 

Throwing up all morning is not how Laurent had anticipated spending his Saturday, but the Griva attacks him with a vengeance, and, on second thought, the decent night’s sleep was certainly _not_ worth the excruciating rawness of his throat after he’s done expelling the contents of his stomach. When he is positive that he will not see it back up, Laurent chugs a glass of water and swallows a handful of Aspirin with it.

His phone was dead when he’d woken up this morning, so he plugs it in to his laptop and sits down at the desk in his bedroom, tugging out the homework he’d neglected last night while out. The phone flickers back into existence, and Laurent finds he has a few text messages. Two from his brother informing him that he’d left money for food for the week, and that there was also plenty in the pantry (he ignores these), three from Damen (he cannot even be bothered to read them right now, lest the embarrassment of everything he remembers last night choke him out), and one from Nicaise.

Laurent opens Nicaise’s message without a second thought.

 

**Nicaise [2:21AM]:**

_have you and your idiot brother made any more moves on getting me out of this hellhole?_

**Laurent [1:03PM]:**

_He hasn’t brought it up since we last discussed it. He’s currently on his way to Europe, maybe you should call him?_

After his uncle’s incarceration, it had left his only next of kin, his son, Laurent’s cousin, without a place to go. He’d been forced into the foster system; Auguste was old enough to take custody of Laurent, just barely, but the court would not allow him the custody of their cousin. When he was older, they’d said. He is much older now, but the move to the States has complicated things in leaps and bounds – all Laurent wants is for Nicaise to be with them again, to protect him though there is much less to protect him from now with uncle locked away for life, but it is an expensive and lengthy process to adopt a teenage boy.

By now Nicaise has spent the vast majority of his life in and out of foster homes, and Laurent hates himself for doing that to his cousin.

 

**Nicaise [1:05PM]:**

_ugh you both suck_

**Nicaise [1:05PM]:**

_not as bad as the people i’m staying with rn tho. they’re VEGETARIANS, laurent. willingly. who the fuck just chooses that kind of lifestyle??_

Laurent laughs, Nicaise’s dramatics a constant source of entertainment, and puts his phone on silent to focus on his homework. He knocks everything out in just under an hour and resigns himself to eating a light lunch, a romaine salad, because while puking is still a probability, Laurent cannot forego food for the entire day.

He cleans the kitchen from top to bottom when he is done eating, then throws in a load of laundry, and vacuums the living room, and it is not until he is done with all these things that he allows himself to admit that he has been avoiding his phone all day. Simply because he does not want to see what Damen has said.

(Partly, too, because he does not want to text Auguste back, and if he is on his phone then he cannot plead himself too distracted to reply, and he is not a capable liar when it comes to Auguste.)

Soft evening light floods through the wide window in his bedroom, and he flings it open to let the mild breezes in. They play with his curtains, pulling and pushing; Laurent leans over the edge of the window, hands braced against the sill, breathing the fresh air in a final act of avoidance. Regardless of what he would like, he cannot ignore the texts forever.

Well, he probably could ignore Damen’s – but the boy would just find him on Monday morning and demand attention with nothing more than his presence, so it is a losing situation either way. Laurent types in the four-digit passcode and accepts his fate, shooting Auguste a text first.

 

**Laurent [6:13PM]:**

_Sorry, I’ve been busy doing homework and cleaning all day. Thanks for leaving the extra money. Hope your flight was okay._

Detached is the way he almost always approaches Auguste these days. It had not, of course, always been this way; a much more recent development to treat his brother with anything falling short of brotherly devotion and admiration. Truth be told, Laurent misses the simplicity of it, of openly loving his brother, of being honest with him.

Auguste did not bring them here to punish his younger brother, so why does Laurent continue to feel like he did?

Laurent pushes out a breath, promising himself to stop thinking about it, instead thumbing open Damen’s texts as a means of distraction. A shitty way to go about it, but anything will be better than Laurent beating himself up for things that are far and beyond his control.

 

**Damianos [9:22AM]:**

_I woke up this morning feeling like ass, so I know you have to be way worse off. Drink some pickle juice._

The fine line of Laurent’s delicate brow shoots up.

 

**Laurent [6:19PM]:**

_Pickle juice?_

It should not surprise Laurent that Damen immediately begins to reply to him, but the “Damen is typing…” still forms a fist and lodges inside his throat, making breathing a test of character.

 

**Damianos [6:21PM]:**

_Hey, you’re alive! And do not knock the powers of the pickle juice, dude. Cowards take painkillers and wallow in their misery, but brave men like me? We chug the juice, and we rise from the ashes of our drunken mistakes._

**Damianos [6:21PM]:**

_The choice is totally yours but, like, I’m gonna judge you a little if you’re one of the cowards._

 

A feeling like laughter tickles his throat, and because there is no one around to witness it, Laurent allows himself the simple pleasure. Laurent smiles down at his screen and wishes that Damen was far less charming than he actually is. Keeping him at a safe distance would be so much easier that way.

 

**Laurent [6:24PM]:**

_I hate to let you down like this, but as luck would have it I am exactly the kind of person who pops a few Aspirin and calls it a day when it comes to hangovers._

**Damianos [6:25PM]:**

_Sigh. I had such high hopes for you, too. :/_

**Laurent [6:25PM]:**

_Sorry to disappoint._

**Damianos [6:25PM]:**

_It’s gonna take some extreme schmoozing to repair this type of damage._

**Damianos [6:26PM]:**

_What are you doing tonight? You could get a head start._

 

Teeth digging into his lower lip, Laurent cannot curb the smile on his face. Faced with the way his heart skips a beat at the prospect of spending another evening with Damen (in such quick succession, too), Laurent is unsure of what to do. Logic reasons that it is a horrible, _awful_ idea – shouldn’t he keeping Damen at arm’s length to prevent more pain or trouble? The traitorous parts of him, however, argue that Laurent has so very few _good_ things in his life, and Damen is _good_ down to his core, so what could it _really_ hurt to be close to him?

Thinking like that makes the decision easy enough.

 

**Laurent [6:30PM]:**

_I had intended to stay in and watch a movie or something._

**Damianos [6:30PM]:**

_I like movies._

 

Laurent snorts. As subtle as a dog begging for handouts.

 

**Laurent [6:31PM]:**

_It is my understanding that most people do, yes._

**Damianos [6:31PM]:**

_Okay, well, I’d like movies with YOU._

**Damianos [6:31PM]:**

_Let me come over and join you? I’ll bring snacks._

Pretending that his heart is not making a valiant effort to separate itself from his body, Laurent takes a deep breath, and is all too happy to accept this providence.

 

**Laurent [6:32PM]:**

_I like peanut butter cookies._

 

**x.**

 

Half an hour later, Damen stands on Laurent’s front porch with store-bought cookies in one hand, the other still poised to knock. Laurent might be persuaded to believe that Damen never stops grinning, but he has seen expressions to the contrary for himself on two very out of place occasions now.

“I brought cookies.” Damen says as he steps inside, offering the plastic box of them to Laurent even as Laurent rolls his eyes and shuts the door behind his guest.

“I can see that,” Laurent replies, leading Damen into the living room, with its vaulted ceilings and powder blue sectional. The menu for Infinity War is playing on the screen, and when Damen sees it, he levels Laurent with a look of mock seriousness.

“Cap or Iron Man?” He asks, like it’s something he has given a lot of thought to, and he probably has. “This really will make or break my opinion of you.” But Laurent knows it’s just a joke, can see it in the burgeoning laughter trying to break free behind the façade of Damen’s expression.

“Neither. Spiderman.” Laurent puts the box of cookies next to the bowl of popcorn and drops onto the couch, picking up the remote, ignoring the way his hands feel sticky with sweat. Maybe he’s nervous, or maybe he just has butter on his fingers from the popcorn bag. The world may never know.

Damen nods sagely and sits two cushions down from Laurent, giving him the space he already seems to understand that Laurent needs. “A wise compromise. I’ll allow it.”

Laurent’s snort isn’t very attractive, but it’s not like he’s trying to be, anyway. He selects play and the movie starts as he picks up the bowl of popcorn and offers some to Damen, who gladly accepts a handful. He shoves the whole fist of snacks into his mouth and Laurent should be disgusted. Instead, he’s just endeared.

It actually isn’t so bad, sitting in companionable silence with Damen while they watch the movie, laughing at all the funny parts. Laurent has no real basis for things like this, for friendship, for spending time with people that are not obligated to spend time with him. Auguste would have a cow if Laurent told him he’d had another human being over, not entirely in a bad way – there would be a lot of teasing, demanding to meet the mystery person, if things weren’t so… if things were better.

The lack of conversation doesn’t last; it rarely does, with Damen. There are so many things he has to say, it would appear, at all times.

“A lot of people really hate Tony Stark, but I kind of love him.” Around a mouth full of popcorn, Damen has decided to make movie commentary. Laurent hates that he does not mind it so much as he normally might, simply because it is _Damen._ “He’s just – he’s so _human,_ you know what I mean? Everyone acts like superheroes should never have any faults, but I think that’s what ultimately makes them different from villains.”

Laurent turns to look at him, tilting his head in silent question. Damen catches it from the corner of his eye and faces him, making a vague gesture with the hand not knuckle deep in the bowl of buttery treats.

“Like, no one is perfect. People fuck up, all of us, even the _best_ of us. It’s how we react to our mistakes that determines whether or not we’re good or bad. No one is innately good, and no one is innately bad. We make ourselves that way with how we act and respond to the world around us.”

It is deeper than anything he could have expected from Damen, from any teenage boy on the football team with an entire school slobbering after him, and maybe he has underestimated Damianos. Just a little. Laurent turns his attention back to the movie, but he isn’t really focusing on it anymore.

“You’re quite the philosopher, but I have to disagree on at least one thing you have said.” He thinks about his uncle. About himself. “Some people _are_ fundamentally bad. It’s in their nature to be.”

Damen shakes his head and shoves more popcorn into his mouth, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. Auguste would saw his legs off if he saw him do that, so Laurent lets him, and does not say anything about it. “It is a choice to be a bad person, it’s just the _easier_ choice.”

Gamora goes flying over the side of the cliff, breaking the fall with her own bones and blood. To give up what you love is the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate price to pay. You must know what you are willing to give up in order to succeed.

Laurent’s eyes go unfocused, mind a million other places than where he wants it to be. He is brought back from the dark edge by something hitting the side of his face. He whips around to scowl at Damen, rubbing his cheek to get rid of the butter residue clinging to it.

“Are you a _four?”_ Laurent demands, earning the wide expanse of Damen’s grin in return. It is infuriatingly gorgeous, and altogether frustrating to have Damen spread out comfortably on his couch, legs stretched out, bowl of popcorn in his lap and eyes rapt on him. He never thought he could have this. Did not know he even _wanted_ it until now, and he does, he wants it more – often, all the time, whenever Damen wants it.

It is terrifying.

“Four and a _half,_ I’ll have you know.” Damen raises another piece of popcorn, asking a question with it.

“No.” Laurent shakes his head, eyes narrowed. “I am not letting you fling popcorn at my face so you can try to get a hole in one.”

Damen’s lips twist into a pout. “Do you doubt my aim?” He waggles his brows suggestively as the pout takes the shape of a smirk. “I promise I never miss _any_ holes.”

 _God._ A flustered rush of heat steals over Laurent’s face, lips a flat line, deadpan voice. “It must be easy to not miss something that isn’t there, I would assume.”

And Damen goes stunned for a second, the popcorn he is waving around stilling in the air, until his whole body cracks with the force of his laughter. Damen laughing like this is a dreamy affair, haze of mist early in the morning, shoulders shaking and chest heaving, head tossed back against the couch. Laurent wants to take a picture of it, paint it on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, immortalize it for the entire world to see.

He forces himself to look away, curling his knees in tighter to his chest on the couch, hands pressed in between his thighs so he can’t do anything stupid like reach out and touch, track the lines of Damen’s smile, feel the way his body moves under Laurent’s fingers while his muscles contract with laughter and then maybe something else after.

“Well played, de Vere. Well played.”

Laurent can’t pay attention to the movie, but he also can’t look at Damen anymore. Like staring into the sun, looking at Damen too long makes him feel dizzyingly blind. At this rate, he is going to need to buy a pair of Damen-proof sunglasses, because the alternative of going without Damen entirely is quickly becoming an impossibility.

 

**x.**

 

“Hey! Laurent, right?”

The sun is high in the cloudless sky, bright, but well hidden by the tree Laurent currently sat under during lunch hour. He had come out here seeking refuge, which does seem quite silly when considering how packed the little courtyard really is. Still, for the most part, no one has taken any notice of him. Except for the blonde boy standing over his stone picnic table with a timid light in his blue eyes. Laurent thinks he might look slightly familiar, but the softness of his face is not one he can put a name to.

“Yes.” He says breezily, marking the place in his book with his finger as he gazes passively at the boy.

“Cool. I’m Erasmus.” He swings his legs over the bench opposite Laurent and sits down. Laurent sighs. So much for a little peaceful reading between classes. “We met the other night at Nikandros’.” He pauses, rethinking his statement with a pinched brow. “Well, we didn’t really _meet_ -meet, but it was meeting by proxy, for sure.”

The smile comes back again, Laurent blinking slowly at him as if to say _is that all?_ While explaining why Laurent vaguely recognizes his face, it does not even begin to approach any reasoning for why he has sought Laurent out. Erasmus brushes a lock of his shoulder length waves behind his ear and does not appear deterred in the slightest by Laurent’s icy demeanor. This is becoming more commonplace for him, Laurent unsure if he should disparage it, or be glad that for once he is not only being approached to have his face shoved into a locker.

“I’d seen you around before that, too, but never really had the nerve to talk to you.” His smile turns shy, pale skin of his face soft pink with embarrassment, and Laurent is thawing, giving way to pure astonishment, though he is not sure he has understood completely. Surely Erasmus does not mean to imply that he’d been too _nervous_ to speak to _Laurent?_ “You’re a little intimidating.”

Well, yes, but that doesn’t explain—

“Why would you even want to talk to me in the first place?” Laurent startles the both of them with his genuine question, the innocence of it, though he suspects Erasmus’ befuddled look befalls him for a very different reason than Laurent’s own.

“You seem cool.” He shrugs bony shoulders lightly, digging thumbs into the peel of an orange Laurent hadn’t even noticed in his hands. It occurs to him then, belatedly, that Erasmus has come to find him so that they can eat _lunch_ together. Erasmus exposes the flesh of his orange and offers a slice to Laurent, who turns him down with a shake of his head and a very, very muddled expression.

“What are you reading?” Erasmus asks around a mouthful of fruit, for all the world acting genuinely interested in this one-sided exchange of theirs as he gestures with his orange to the book Laurent has all but forgotten about it. He peers down at it as though reminding himself of its existence and clears his throat.

“War of The Foxes, by Richard Siken.” Laurent says through the overworked circuitry of his brain as it tries to catch up with the situation. He can handle a conversation about books. It is a topic which he knows a great deal about, to the absolute shock of no one at all. “It’s a collection of narrative poetry, mostly questioning the act of human necessity to search for meaning in art while simultaneously inventing it.”

Erasmus hums and tilts his head, thoughtfully quiet as his dirty blonde hair shifts against his cheek, sliding like water over his skin. The sun catches the curiosity in his eyes, and Laurent meets him, look for look. “Huh. Sounds pretty deep.” He grins, and laughs, an explosion the scent of citrus. “I’m sure it’d go right over my head, I’ve never been good with poetry.”

A shy nod of acknowledgement, Laurent says, “Most people our age struggle with it.”

“But not you?”

Thin fingers move over the cover of his book absently, eyes falling to it as he weighs the words in his mouth. “No. I’m a writer, so I understand.”

Laurent doesn’t know why he tells Erasmus that. He just does. Writing isn’t something he talks about very often; he thinks that maybe Auguste is the only one who has ever read anything of his, other than his teachers.

Erasmus’ smile spreads, slowly, over his face once more. “I was right. You’re totally cool.”

Laurent blinks, lifting his head to look across the table where Erasmus is rising just in time as the bell screams across the courtyard. Everywhere is suddenly busy with motion, an errant bird taking flight over head as the courtyard erupts into the noise of people gathering their things and heading back into the stone walls of their eight-hour prison. Erasmus raps his knuckles on the stone table once, twice, and takes a step back.

“See you around, Laurent. Thanks for letting me crash your lunch.”

Gathering his things up, bag slinging over his shoulder and book lifted up from the table, Laurent watches Erasmus head back towards the doors. Another boy greets him there, slings an arm around his shoulder, and the two of them disappear into the halls with smiles on their faces. Laurent pictures, for a jealous moment, himself and Damen walking down the halls like that. With laughter on their faces and an ease to their posture that Laurent is not often privy to affording himself during school hours.

 _Stop that,_ a voice in his head says as he makes his way back into the school _._

_It can never be like that, not at school, not when you already have a target on your back._

No, it can’t, but it doesn’t mean that Laurent denies himself the simple pleasure of fantasizing it on his way to Lit. Damen is waiting for him by the door, beacon of warm energy radiating a smile down the hall as soon as he spots Laurent over the heads of every other teen in the hall.

“You weren’t at lunch today.” He says when Laurent comes to stand in front of him, smile unwavering. “I was hoping to talk to you since I missed you at our lockers this morning.”

“I ate in the courtyard.” Laurent tells him, and it feels good in a way he cannot put a name to when Damen follows at his heels inside the classroom, dropping down into the desk next to Laurent’s instead of his normal seat. The girl that usually sits there complies with these new arrangements at the beck of little more than Damen’s glittering smile, and Laurent wishes he knew what that kind of power must feel like. To command anyone, everyone, with just a smile; to be loved, or even simply liked, enough that no one minds when you get your way.

“By yourself?” Damen asks, brows drawn cutely over a pouting smile. Laurent rolls his eyes and takes out his notebook, his pen.

“While that was my _intention_ , no, I did not sit through lunch alone. One of your friends joined me, actually.” Laurent fills in his heading as he does with every class period – his name, the date, the subject, the topic of discussion – then tentatively looks back up at Damen. “Erasmus found me and talked with me.”

“Oh.” Damen’s eyes are wide, shocked, like he had not expected any of his friends from the party to seek Laurent out in school. He mulls over something silently, comes to some sort of conclusion, and nods. “Yeah, Erasmus is pretty rad. Super sweet kid. He’s a sophomore, I think.” Another pause. “You two would make sense as friends.”

Ms. Blake walks into the room with a stack of graded papers tucked into the crook of her arm, wordlessly putting an end to all conversation in the room as she begins handing them out. Laurent doesn’t get the chance to say anything further about whether or not he even _wants_ to be friends with Erasmus (it’s not like he has any real arguments to the contrary; very few people would take his desire to be alone as a practical concern), accepting his graded quiz – a perfect score – just before Damen accepts his own.

There is nothing like shock on Damen’s face when he accepts his also perfect score, just that signature smile as he thanks Ms. Blake and tucks the quiz into his subject folder. He had expected that grade, then. Good at math, good at Literature, and Laurent is so desperate to know everything _else_ Damen is good at, too. With time, maybe.

With time.

 

**x.**

 

Everything is silent, the house a trap that swallows up all the noise from the world outside, hauntingly empty of that which makes a house a home, little more than a structure with a roof on top, and this is the only reason Laurent accepts the call.

“Hello?” He says, tucking the phone between cheek and shoulder while he solves the linear equation on the paper in front of him.

“Lo, _hey.”_ Auguste’s voice is soft breath through the line of connection, and Laurent ignores the nickname, the pet name, that Auguste has not used for him since France. Since things were normal between them. “How’s it going over there, little brother?”

Laurent finishes the equation but feels that he is nowhere near the end of solving his problem. “Fine. I’m just doing homework right now.”

There is a commotion on his brother’s end of the call, loud, raucous cheering, which even Auguste joins in on (blessedly holding the phone away from his mouth as he does), Laurent’s eyebrows shooting up.

“Have you called me from a bar, Auguste?” He laughs in disbelief, putting his pencil down and re-positioning the phone, holding it properly to his other ear.

“No!” Auguste cries, only then he seems to pause to reconsider what Laurent knows has been a lie. “Maybe. Shush.”

Of course his brother would only call him drunk, in a time-zone halfway across the world. Laurent does not allow himself to dwell on it; things are the way they are, Laurent cannot hope for them to magically fix themselves.

“Did you need something? I should hope you don’t expect me to come and get you. That might be a little hard for me to do.”

Auguste laughs, the sound of it taking the shape of a dagger and striking through Laurent’s heart. It has been a very long time indeed since he last heard his brother laugh, or do anything more than sigh, resigned, defeated, lost. “No, no. I don’t need anything.”

A long, pregnant hush passes over them like the shadow of a hand. Laurent is beginning to think that maybe Auguste has gotten distracted or accidentally muted himself when suddenly, “I just really miss you, Lo.”

The dagger twists, pushed further into the delicate flesh of his most vital artery. Hot blood gushes free from the wound and spatters at his feet, straining the world-weary breath that Laurent takes to ground himself. “You’ll be home this Sunday.” He says. Auguste laughs again, but it is devoid of humor. It is devoid of everything that is not sadness.

“That isn’t what I mean, and you know it.”

Laurent sighs, all that is left of his heart a crater in his chest that the silence between them rushes through but does nothing to fill. This is not the sort of conversation he wants to have over the phone, or at all if it can be avoided – but he knows that it cannot, that it has already gone on for too long. Auguste and Laurent do not do well without one another, they never have. Now, more than ever, he should be clinging to his brother, not pushing him away over something petty.

It feels much larger than pettiness, to Laurent anyway, but at the end of the day, what can be done about it?

“Do you really hate me so much for moving us that you aren’t willing to fix things with me?” The words shock Laurent, roughly rip the dagger out and stab it in, and in, and in, and Laurent is unable to work through the pain, the roil of his stomach as it churns something horrid.

“Auguste, I – I don’t hate you. I have _never_ hated you.”

 _You are all I have,_ he doesn’t say, and it occurs to him startlingly, then, just how much he has made a mess of things.

In his selfish, teenage angst, Laurent has never stopped to consider what it must feel like for Auguste, what everything must have felt like for Auguste since Laurent was ten years old and he was only barely eighteen. To have lost his mother, his father, his uncle, and to be losing his brother slowly through the course of it all, Laurent suddenly feels so guilty he cannot breathe at all. Overwhelmed to the point of breaking, tears prick his eyes.

“I have been angry. I am still – _dealing_ with the move, the fact that you uprooted our lives and forced us to abandon everything we had known and loved and come to a place where we know nothing. But I could never, never hate you, Auguste.”

Auguste breathes wetly on the other end of the phone, and Laurent does not care that his voice shakes, or that there are tears hot as hellfire singing the skin of his face.

“I love you. I love you so much, Auguste.” He says. Auguste does nothing but sob in response, before collecting himself and speaking.

“I didn’t move us out of cruelty, Lo. I did it because – as much as you want to deny it – France was draining the _life_ out of you and I just couldn’t stand by and watch it kill you, too.” Laurent closes his eyes against the fresh of wave tears. “Yes, it was all we had ever known, but we were living in a house full of ghosts, Laurent. Everything there was a reminder of mom and dad, or of… of _him,_ and you know it.”

All the nights Laurent had woken up screaming, clawing at the sheets and clothes on his small body, bathing himself with bleach water at midnight while his brother was away, yes, Laurent did know. Scrubbing his skin raw to erase every touch, hating his body even after the surgery, after the testosterone, years of letting his uncle and the trauma eat him alive after the fact. Laurent had wanted to stay in France _because_ of what had transpired there, in an act of sick, twisted self-hatred. Had wanted to let the routine of it destroy him, to free him.

It was not healthy, and he understands, and he hates that Auguste has saved him. That he has had to, every single time Laurent has tried to put himself down.

“I’m sorry.” Laurent whispers, choking on emotion thick in his throat. “I’m so sorry.”

Laurent can hear a door opening and closing, the sound of running water. Auguste must be in the bar’s restroom, hiding himself and his tears away from the people he is with. He must be an amusing sight (Laurent knows what his brother looks like crying, distraught with agony), a red face covered in tears and snot in a cramped stall.

“It’s alright. All I want…” Auguste coughs around a sob. “Laurent, all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be okay. Taking the job and moving seemed to me like the perfect opportunity to let you start over, you know? To give you the chance at a life without all of the bullshit.” He clears his throat. “And I know it hasn’t been _all_ that bad for you.”

Laurent’s brow furrows, free hand scrubbing away the last of his fat, rushing tears. “What do you mean?”

“You think I didn’t see that cute guy picking you up the other night?” Auguste’s watery smile is visible through the phone. Laurent flushes hotly, glaring down at his forgotten math homework and squawking indignantly.

“It isn’t – he’s not – Damen is just a friend!”

“Oh, so his name is Damen?” Auguste’s tease is a purr and Laurent is very, very tempted to hang up in his brother’s face. It would feel more satisfying if flip-phones were still a thing, but he would derive pleasure from it nevertheless. “Well, Damen is very handsome, and I want you to bring him around for dinner when I get back this weekend.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Auguste laughs, pleasantly, and it loosens the knot Laurent has been tying tighter and tighter over these last few months. This conversation has returned some normalcy to his relationship with Auguste, he thinks, though it cannot all be solved with a single phone call. Laurent knows he will be making more of an effort to mend things, though; they are, after all, all the family one another has left. To let something like this tear them apart would be foolish, and Laurent is no fool.

“Tell him Sunday at 7. I’ll cook your favorite meal.” Auguste’s voice is a sing-song, sincere happiness in it for the first time in… god, Laurent doesn’t know. It feels like years. Maybe it _has_ been that long. “Anyway, I should really go. I left my coworkers high and dry in the middle of trivia.”

“I’m sure you were winning.” Auguste has far too much useless knowledge for his own good. Laurent wonders where he even gets it all.

“You are goddamned right we were.” Obviously pleased, and then, softly, “I’ll talk to you soon, Lo. I love you.”

The call ends. Laurent puts his phone down, ignoring the 10% warning, returns all of his attention to his homework. Things feel warmer inside of him, like someone has walked into the room and turned on the lights he’s been leaving off, and Laurent picks his pencil up, but then decides to turn the page in his notebook to do something else instead.

For the first time in months, Laurent begins to write.

 

**x.**

 

On Friday, the entire school is abuzz with excitement for the Homecoming game to take place that evening. For the most part, Laurent has avoided all of the pleasantries that come along with Homecoming Week, all of the dressing up, the decorating, the inanity of the separate grades battling for who has the most school spirit, which culminates in the pep rally on Friday afternoon an hour and a half before the last bell. The seniors win, because of course they do, they always win everything – from the tug of war, to the dance off, to screaming competition that earns them the school spirit stick.

In a bizarre, unfamiliar way, Laurent finds it charmingly fascinating to see the way that American high schools work. Even his bullies spare him the week, which has made all of this… surprisingly pleasant, in spite of his contrarian attitude.

As Laurent is rising from his seat on the bleachers after the pep rally has ended and the hundreds of students are dispersing the gym, he catches sight of Damen’s curly mop of brown hair through the crowd. He is, in fact, headed Laurent’s way, striding up the center aisle of the bleachers with an excited flush on his face from the revelries. For him, it must be especially thrilling – he will be leading their football team to an assured victory, tonight.

Laurent tries to stifle the way his heart flip-flops at the sight he makes, skin which should be washed out by the gym’s poor lighting illuminated in a healthy, youthful glow, his football jersey emblazoned on the back with a bold TWENTY-TWO, wearing their school colors, navy blue and blood red, like armor, Damen is a picture of unrefined beauty. Rough around the edges, breathtaking in every way. At least Laurent’s knees have not quite gone weak, yet.

“Are you coming to the game?” Damen’s question is a breathless utterance as he reaches Laurent, sweat glistening on his skin, dappled across his forehead to catch every shift of light in the room.

“I wasn’t planning to, no.” Laurent answers, feet shuffling, eyes averted – direct eye contact is so dangerous these days.

“Laurent, come on, it’s _Homecoming.”_ Damen pleads with him, because he must know that Laurent has never been to a single football game since the start of school, or in his whole life. He has only the vaguest idea of how the sport works, but he is not saint enough to deny that he has seen Damen in his full gear and liked it. _Really_ liked it.

(Enough that he forces himself to stop thinking about it, to stop remembering what it was like to see Damen’s ass in those pants, if they could even be called that, the vision he’d made whipping his helmet off to clap a teammate on the back during practice and how the sight had followed Laurent home and into his bedroom.)

“ _Please_ come to the game?” The boy continues, a hair’s breadth away from an outright beg. Laurent has to remind himself to breathe. “A few of us are going to Nik’s after to maybe do some drinking. I know it’s not your scene, but you didn’t hate it the other night, so I—”

“Okay.” Laurent puts a prompt end to Damen’s nervous rambling, looks up through the canopy of his fair lashes. Something in his expression must win Damen over, because his mouth clamps shut on whatever he had been preparing to say. “I’ll come to the game, and I’ll go to Nikandros’ with you.”

Damen’s smile is blinding, steals all the light from the room and turns it into a weapon he wields like a sword. Will it ever stop making Laurent shiver like being hit with a splash of cool water, he wonders, and hopes against better judgement that it never does.

 

**x.**

 

At halftime, they’re up by a single score. Laurent writes his way through the start of the game and the crowning of all the Homecoming court, though he is vaguely aware that Jokaste is crowned queen. When he looks up from his seat, she is a splendor of vibrant gold fabric, her mermaid dress glittering with the effect of the field lights. On her cascade of fat, blonde curls, the crown is as natural as breathing. She takes pictures, hugs her parents, and then disappears from the field to slip back into her cheer uniform.

After, Laurent returns his attention back to his notebook, black ink scrawling down every line, passing thoughts and ideas that strike him anew; the inspiration to create again is so fragile, fresh, and novel that he is refusing to let even the smallest idea slip by him. He has missed writing so much, but until his conversation with Auguste the other night there had not been any desire to. Now, though, everything seems to inspire him.

There is a very large chance that Laurent has _maybe_ written a massive poem about Damianos as a result of this new-found motivation, an outpouring free-form that had flowed unbidden and unstoppable. Everything he feels for Damen, the gratitude, the affection, the confusion, staining the pages of a journal he keeps well hidden in his bedroom where not even Auguste could find it. Everything about Damen, the glob of clay in Laurent’s stomach beginning to take the shape of an identifiable crush, to his utter horror, so much safer when Damen had been more elusive than tangible.

Even sitting on the bleachers with Damianos on the field feels like a gamble, a roll of the dice that could just as easily backfire and explode, shredding Laurent to microscopic pieces with the shrapnel.

Distracted as he is, Laurent is caught unawares of the fact that everyone around him has grown tense, until from his adjacent realm of existence he is drawn back to reality by a loud cry, “Come on, Twenty-Two!”

Laurent’s eyes rip from the page, wide as saucers; they first find the source of the shout, an older man risen to his feet with his hands cupped around his mouth as he follows the blur of movement tearing across the field. Laurent’s blue eyes go there, too, after they have seen the board counting down from ten, game in a tight necked tie. Damen’s legs are pushing him through the resistance of the opposing team, his blue and red streak painting the field behind him as he runs, ball in hand.

This is the second most important game of the season, and Damen really is going to win it for them.

Everything narrows down in slow-motion, Laurent’s heart pounding, whole body still before he stands to his feet, rushing towards the chain-link fencing the bleachers in. His notebook and pen fall to the ground behind him, ignored, nonexistent, nothing in the world but the fact that Damen is on the verge of making the winning touchdown.

“Go, Damen!” Laurent cries, sudden sound of it slicing through the night, a shock even to himself, and Damen hears it, he must – his legs push just a little harder, carry him the last yard, and the end of the game sounds out over their heads in time with Damen crossing the line and slamming the ball down in a detonation of turf.

_Victory._

The people at Laurent’s back, hundreds of them, go crazy with screams and cheers. Players on the field rush to Damen to congratulate him, but he ignores all of their excitement, ripping his helmet off his head so that his eyes can find the shock of Laurent’s body in the crowd. Pressed to the fence, Laurent is weak and lost to the smile splitting open his marble exterior, broad and pure, raining down on Damen as Laurent claps slowly, the whole world dead to him. Everything is Damen, Damen, Damen, victorious Damen, and the battle is theirs. All theirs.

 

**x.**

 

_Today is Laurent’s first day of school, and he is terrified._

_Before him the double-doors form a gate, the red, weather-worn brick of the high school a sentry of turrets, the flag waving over the building boasting unfamiliar territory. Auguste had not handpicked this institution the way their parents had done for them as children; his job had brought them here. He had packed all of Laurent’s things for him while his brother had cried and screamed and begged him not to, and he’d had everything express shipped overseas to this foreign place, and he had dropped Laurent off this morning in stony silence._

_Laurent is aware of people parting around him, turning to look at his unrecognizable face, his feet anchors to the cement underfoot. No one knows who the new kid is, and he looks weird, and he’s dressed funny, and why is his hair so long? Did he braid it himself, you think? He’s probably… you know._

_“Hey.” The voice startles Laurent, body straightening with tension. He grips his bag strap tight, too tight, and looks up to the smiling face staring at him, not unkindly. Not like the voices drifting back to him over the morning dew. The source is a boy maybe a head and a half taller than Laurent, olive skinned with untamed, unbrushed curls on his head. Muscular in the way athletes usually are, bright red shirt tight over a broad chest. He is handsome, and Laurent is promising himself he will not blush or fawn._

_“Hi.” Laurent replies tentatively, quietly, not relaxing his body even incrementally._

_“I’m Damianos, but everyone calls me Damen. You’re new, right?” Damianos says, and as he nods, Laurent tests the weight of the name on his tongue, tastes how the vowels and consonants shape his mouth, the sweetness of them._

_He allows Damianos to lead him into the building, to show him where the front office is, and then watches as this friendliness is swept away by a group of teens accosting him at the entrance. He waves at Laurent, then disappears into a sea of bodies, backpacks, and binders._

_Damianos is art, too good for New Artes. Striking, distractingly beautiful, popular; everyone loved him, loved how he could make you feel special, how he laughed at every joke, even the bad ones, and teased with a heart of pure, untampered gold. Laurent watches him those first few days, from a safe enough distance, until someone notices. Someone far less good than Damianos._

_“Got a crush on Akielos, Frenchie?” The jeer comes from across the hall first thing in the morning, while Laurent is at his locker, attention drawn away from Damianos with a flush of anger and embarrassment. They won’t bother you if you don’t acknowledge them, he tells himself, but it is a fanciful lie that misleads him and lulls him into false security. That is how the bullying starts. Small, at first, but they grow bolder, overwhelmingly, and Laurent is not weak by any means – but they gang up on him when he is alone, and they have numbers, and Laurent has no one._

_All he has is a stupid, damning crush on a star athlete, and the loneliness in his heart that keeps him up late into the night, screaming sobs into his pillow, wishing Auguste had just let him numb himself to death in France._

**x.**

 

“Let’s hear it for the once and future king, Damianos motherfucking Akielos!”

The living room of Nikandros’ house erupts into cheers and catcalls, the host himself raising up Damen’s arm with one hand while the other lifts a red solo cup in cheers of his own. Laurent raises his own cup of box wine in a small acknowledgement of Damen’s bashful acceptance to the jaunting around him.

Nikandros and Damen, along with a majority of the other players, have not yet shed their jerseys. Instead, they are wearing them with the victorious pride of an army coming home from the frontlines, each of them clapping Damen on the back as he bobs between dancing, drunken bodies to join Laurent where he has sequestered himself away in the otherwise empty kitchen. He’s rather enjoying the liberty of eating his fair share of carrots and red pepper hummus, but he sets his plate aside when Damen comes to a still on the other side of the counter.

Laurent swallows his carrot and hummus, tilting his wine cup at Damen playfully. “Congratulations, Damianos motherfucking Akielos.”

Damen’s hands brace his weight against the counter as he laughs breathlessly at the joke, eyes following the movement of Laurent lifting the cup to his lips to take a sip. The wine tastes terrible, but he will need it in abundance to get through the night, he is certain.

“Thanks.” Damen says, dragging the bag of baby carrots closer to himself and crunching into one happily. “Gotta be honest, you’re to thank for it.” Unaware that Laurent has gone entirely still, carrot halfway to his mouth, Damen is scooping hummus onto a plate for himself as he goes on. “Knowing you were watching made me want to play better, so that you’d be impressed. Guess that makes you my good luck charm, huh?”

Laurent drops the carrot back to his plate, scorching heat of his blush curling around his neck, tickling its way up across his cheeks. The way Damen says something so – so _absurd_ with such sincerity, Laurent huffs out a surprised laugh. Everyone’s love and admiration for Damen is not unfounded whatsoever; he is a masterpiece, a breath of fresh air in a crowded room. Laurent is impossibly gone on him.

The recognition of his true feelings dawns on him as he stands there watching Damen snack on carrots, until, finally, feeling the pressure of Laurent’s gaze he glances up and grins in partial confusion. “What?” He asks, mouth full of food, and Laurent snorts. Shakes his head.

“You are ridiculous.” Laurent chuckles, endlessly, cruelly fond, draining the rest of his wine and spinning around to go back for more.

“Get me one, too.” Damen says, and Laurent does. They pass the carrots and hummus back and forth, drinking wine, and Damen tells him everything about tonight’s game, all the things Laurent had missed as he’d written, about why he loves sports so much, especially football. “I want to play professionally one day,” he admits, which does not surprise Laurent even a little. Damen is incredible, not just at football, but at everything he sets his heart on. A blazing fire, a hurricane of flames barreling forward wholeheartedly in a whirl of passion: Damen could successfully do anything he wanted.

Eventually, they move from the kitchen to the patio out back, desperate for fresh air and the separation from the boisterous crowd, Laurent four cups of wine deep and Damen not far behind at all. The alcohol makes talking easier, takes him out of his own head just enough that he is able to laugh more freely, smile without feeling burdened by it, and listen as Damen tells him about his older brother, Kastor.

“We were really close when we were kids. Well, I was a kid, Kastor was a teenager.” Laurent has one leg in the chair, cheek pressed to his knee, and the other leg extended beneath the round glass table they’re sitting at. Sometimes, when he twists his ankle just right, his leg bumps against Damen’s, and he thrills with the contact.

“Are you not close now?” Laurent asks, voice a gray mix of paint, warm, smooth. Damen looks rueful.

“No.” He says quietly, looking into the cup he’s holding. Looking for answers in the swirl of wine, lost to his body as he tosses it back too quick. Once his coughing subsides, he sighs. “Things changed when I started getting older. Our dad got sick, and when he died, he left our childhood home to me instead of Kastor, and I guess it made Kastor realize our dad only ever thought of him as the bastard son from the other woman.”

Damen’s shoulders are heavy with his words, his head slumping forward into the cradle of his hands. He wipes over his face a few times before he comes back to himself, back to the moment; Laurent watches him and feels sorry for him. Even when they are fighting, Laurent cannot imagine a life without Auguste.

“I’m sorry, Damianos.” Laurent does not know what compels him to do it, but he reaches out, just like the last time they had been at Nikandros’. There must be something about this place – ley lines, a crack in the Earth’s crust, faulty continental plates. Fingers draw one of Damen’s hands away from his face, folding their hands together on the tabletop. Brown eyes look at the connection of their skin for a long, odd moment, then he gives Laurent’s hand a firm squeeze.

“You’ve mentioned your brother before.” Damen mumbles, not looking away from where their hands join. Amazed by it, almost, if Laurent allows himself to foolishly think something akin to wonder is present in the honey of Damen’s eyes. “Tell me about him.”

And because Laurent is drunk, uninhibited, and desperately wants to be closer to Damen than he is, he does. Laurent tells him everything he can think to tell him, the way he and Auguste had been as children (inseparable), how Auguste had instantly been enamored by the pudgy, precocious baby Laurent had been, how he’d had utmost pride in his younger brother all throughout their younger years.

Even when Auguste had gotten older, well into his teen years, he’d never abandoned his baby brother for his friends; he had always seemed to favor Laurent’s company over that of anyone else. He’d taught Laurent how to ride a horse (they’d had a multitude of them in France; their mother taught lessons), and how to fence (Auguste’s preferred sport), and how to pick a lock (their parents kept the Christmas presents stowed away in the dusty attic, but Auguste knew how to get in with nothing more than a stray bobby pin). They’d had plenty of mischievous moments, growing up, and Laurent smiles nostalgically thinking of them now.

It hurts when he gets to the part about their parents dying. Laurent was only nine, then, had been dealing with their uncle’s unsavory advances for years, and when the accident had killed mother and father in one fell swoop, it had gotten to a point where Laurent could no longer handle it. He leaves out the specifics, the molestation, the rape, the whys and hows of it. 

“Auguste had only just turned eighteen and the court was quite reluctant, but I was so inconsolable that I believe it won them over in the end.”

_(“Why don’t you want to live with you uncle, Laurent?” The nice lawyer lady asks him, looking at him with real kindness turned confusion in her eyes. Laurent sobs and hiccups, scraping the dribbling snot away from his nose with the back of his bitty hand._

_“He – he touches me all the time, whenever we’re alone, and I don’t like it.” Through the sobs, the tears chasing more tears down the planes of his chubby cheeks, the judge inhales sharply next to the bench and the lawyer’s look transforms into one of furious pity._

_Across the room, their attorney has to haul Auguste back into his seat – he had leapt to his feet at Laurent’s words, shouting, “I’ll fucking kill him! I will kill him right now, you cannot let him take my fucking brother away from me!”_

_It is the first time Laurent has ever told anyone, and he can feel uncle’s disappointed gaze upon his face, that he would betray their secret, that he would tell a room of strangers about the special time they spend together, about the very real love they share._

_After the judge awards Auguste full custody and demands that his uncle be taken away to await another trial, another testimony that Laurent will be expected to give, Laurent spends twenty minutes throwing up in the courthouse’s bathroom. Auguste holds him close and keeps the hair out of his face, promising that he will never let anyone hurt him ever again._

_“I’m never going to fail you like this again, Lo, do you hear me?”_

_Laurent is too young to understand why Auguste blames himself. He’d never done anything, and later, Laurent will realize that is precisely the problem, and he will assure Auguste that he could not have stopped what he did not even know was happening.)_

“My uncle was not a good person.” Laurent finishes, understatement thick between them. Damen does not ask – he understands, and it is easy, it is always so easy with Damianos. The sounds of the party raging on inside drift out through an open window. Someone is yelling, victorious in a game of beer pong, or the winning hand in a particularly vicious circle of Spoons. Over the table, over their hands clasped so tight, brown eyes meet blue, and Damen holds his gaze.

Soft wind turns a set of windchimes, clinking in the night as a gentle soundtrack, the backdrop to something pivotal exchanging between two boys sitting at a patio table. Hairs loose from his braid tickle Laurent’s face, a warmth crawling beneath the fabric of his hoodie. Damen’s mouth is slack with wine, a faint smile that Laurent cannot handle, but cannot break away from.

“You’re so beautiful.” Damen whispers. A dam has broken, the waters spilling between them, washing up around them, pushing Laurent directly over the edge of this monumental moment.

“I’m gay.” A declaration, not a shocking revelation of the truth squeezed out of him at the expense of his withering defenses. This feels like the time to say it, while the tides are changing, rushing remorselessly against their skin. It will give Damen the opportunity to flee.

“I’m bi.” Damen is not fleeing; he is raising his eyebrows, reacting to a challenge that is not really a challenge. “Are we done stating the obvious?”

“I’m _trans.”_ Laurent chokes, forcing the words out. He has not hated his body for what it is; he has been uncomfortable in it, boxed in by it, but the need to tear his own skin off does not stem from the fact that he is not the girl they had declared him at birth. No one knows – no one but his dead, dead parents, his uncle, locked up for life, his cousin, leagues away, his brother, and now… Damen—

Shrugging, not to brush him off, but as the act of a man undeterred. The rush of waves is crashing into him, but he is as firm and resolute as the sun in the sky, as always, a harbor built to withstand the worst storms the ocean is capable of weathering. He squeezes Laurent’s hand again, rubs his thumb over his knuckles. “Okay. That doesn’t bother me. You’re still you. You’re still _Laurent,_ and I still like you.”

_You’re still you._

It takes a second for Laurent to realize that his eyes have closed to brace against what threatens him as an onslaught of tears, his free hand a fist on the thigh of his outstretched leg. Laurent opens his misty eyes to see Damen still watching him, passing a glance over Laurent’s face, studying him, and Laurent decides that it is worth it to take his chances on this, on Damen, on whatever the world is trying to make of them. Laurent is sick, so sick of mechanically battling the currents he swore he would not fight.

 “I don’t want to go home tonight.”

Quietly, the words fall free of his mouth, and Damen nods, understanding. Always understanding. He rises from his chair, the metal of it screeching against the stone patio, and helps Laurent drunkenly get to his feet. On shaky legs, he lets Damen carry most of his weight, supporting him all the way around the side of the house. He seems to know that fighting their way through the party inside would not end well, would only make Laurent anxious, change his mind, and he is thankful for the intuitive force of nature that Damen is proving to be.

Damen isn’t sober or stupid enough to drive them home, so he calls for an Uber. In the backseat of the stranger’s car, Damen carries a drunken, yet sober passing conversation with their driver, and between them Laurent tangles their fingers together and wishes he never had to let go.

 

**x.**

 

Having Damen at his side laughing as they go hardly makes the trek up the massive set of steps leading to his front porch any easier than it would if he was doing it entirely alone. Every time Laurent stumbles, Damen is a mess of hysteric giggles pressing warmth into his side, Laurent loudly cursing him, thankful that Damen’s house is as privately placed as Laurent’s own, or Nikandros’ sans farmland. Somehow, they manage to get in through the front door, Damen locking up behind them.

Inside the house, there are no other traces of life.

“My mom is out of town.” Damen informs him as explanation to the wordless question, leading Laurent by the hand into the living room. He encourages Laurent to have a seat on the couch, which is a cream color, no contrast to the marble of the floors. Where Laurent’s house is homey, wooden, country style, warm, Damen’s is… colder. The walls are a simple white, along with most of the furniture except for a few décor items. It doesn’t feel lived in.

Damen returns from the kitchen with two glasses of water, passing one off to Laurent before he falls bodily onto his couch. Water sloshes over the side of his glass and down the front of his shirt, but he doesn’t care. He’s far too busy grinning dumbly at Laurent.

“I gotta admit, I figured getting you back to my place would be a lot harder than this.” Drunk or not, Laurent knows that Damen is joking, rolls his eyes and gives Damen the middle finger as he sips from his glass. Damen laughs, kicking off his shoes and making himself at home on the couch. His feet almost reach Laurent’s thigh, missing it only by a breath. Laurent remembers something very suddenly through the haze of alcohol in his brain.

“My brother wants you to come over for dinner on Sunday.” He says over the rim of his glass, watching for Damen’s reaction. There isn’t much of one at all, barely a hitch in his breathing, eyes closed and body lax on the couch. His cup is held precariously in one hand, atop his chest. It would be very easy to knock it over and laugh as it spilled all over his torso and face, but Laurent is not that mean. Tonight, anyway.

“Cool. What time?” Damen yawns, blinking his eyes open slowly to peer at Laurent.

“He said seven.” Laurent takes another sip of water, unflinching beneath Damen’s watchful eye. The athlete sits up just a little and sets his water onto the glass coffee table with a clink, laying back down and stretching one arm overhead.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, looking at Laurent tiredly, expectant, but not in the way that makes Laurent’s skin crawl. No, this just makes his heart bend over backwards in a frenzy of rapid beats, the lazy way Damen beckons him closer with the hand on a throw pillow above his head making him hot under the collar. At Laurent’s hesitance, Damen says, “I’m not going to try anything.”

“I know that.” Laurent retorts quickly, quick enough to make his face warm with embarrassment as he pointedly puts his emptied glass next to Damen’s almost entirely full one. Damen will regret not drinking more water before sleeping tomorrow, but right now, Laurent is not feeling particularly penitent. Rather, he is wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans, feeling unsure of himself. Damen says nothing else, waiting patiently for Laurent to make his move. Stay where he is or come closer. A simple enough decision, simultaneously _not_ simple by any stretch.

Laurent’s throat clicks, dry as he fights to swallow, and he pushes himself onto his knees to crawl very delicately over Damen’s strewn out body. Beneath his hands, the rise and fall of Damen’s chest expanding with every breath, his arm falling down to bring Laurent into the crook of it, face pressed to his throat and head tucked under his chin. Damen does not feel uncertain at all as he rubs Laurent’s arm, wrapping both of his around Laurent after and holding him very, very close.

His heart is a healthy, living thrum flowing through him and whispering quiet nonsense into Laurent’s ear. Laurent remains stiff for a few beats of it, then gives in, sinking into the embrace, folding his own arms around Damen’s waist. His hands clasp together at the small of Damen’s back, and Damen busies himself with tangling their legs together. Laurent presses his nose to the curve of Damen’s neck and inhales the life of him, past the stench of sweat and wine; Damen is a mix of spices and rose-petals on a warm day, leaking into the pores of Laurent’s skin and lulling him into a safe place of comfort.

“This doesn’t have to mean anything.” Damen says into the crown of Laurent’s hair, mussed almost completely from his braid. There will be so many tangles to fight through in the morning. For now, Laurent shakes his head (as much as he can) and makes his throat work to get the words out of him.

“I want it to mean something.” Laurent’s whisper is unexpectedly vehement, forceful, demanding, horrifically hopeful.  

Being honest about it is still hard. There had never been – hope, for anything like this: cuddling on Damen’s couch, Damen offering him more than Laurent has dreamt realistic. Three months ago, Damen had been nothing but a friendly face, and now he is… they are becoming _something._ Damen is chipping away at the ice Laurent has buried himself under, one hand pressing up to trace through the layers and draw the illusion of Damen closer to his heart, and Laurent is letting him in.

Damen kisses the top of his head and says, “Then it can. We’ll figure it out.”

Laurent does not fight sleep when it comes. He simply lets the coolness of the water smother the air out of his lungs, then lets Damen’s heart pulse thrumming under his ear chase the cold away, warmth melting him into something brand new.

**Author's Note:**

> my twitter is "occultened," and i urge that you come give me a follow! we can chat and become pals or something, yes?


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